Expect to hear a lot over the next couple of weeks about the
"marriage penalty," that quirk of the tax code that forces
two-income married couples to pay more than singles who live
together. Congress will try to override President Clinton's veto of
a bill that would repeal the penalty, and he'll repeat: The nation
can't afford it. Besides, it's a tax cut for the rich.

Wrong on both counts. First, the expense: Fixing the marriage
penalty would "cost" the government (remember that we're talking
about returning taxpayer money here) $89.8 billion over five years.
That sounds like a lot, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
is projecting a non-Social Security surplus of $695 billion over
the same period - nearly eight times the total amount of tax
relief approved by Congress.

It's doubtful the president places any real stock in his
criticism of marriage-penalty relief as "fiscally irresponsible."
More than once, he has offered to sign the legislation if Congress
would also adopt his even more expensive Medicare prescription drug
plan. And there is a great deal of bipartisan support on Capitol
Hill for marriage penalty relief, even among those who normally
shun tax cuts.

That leaves his charge that this is a tax cut for the rich,
which ought to be news to the more than 50 million Americans
affected every year by the marriage penalty. The CBO estimates that
43 percent of all married couples are affected, paying an average
of $1,480 more in taxes each year than singles who earn the same
income.

Consider Sharon Mallory and Darryl Pierce. Three years ago, they
were employees at a Ford Motor Co. electronics plant in Indiana.
Each made about $9 an hour, and they wanted to get married. But
wedded bliss would come at a cost: Because of the marriage penalty,
Sharon would have to forfeit her $900 tax refund and pay $2,800 in
taxes when she said, "I do."

One way couples such as Sharon and Darryl are penalized is
through the standard deduction: For a single worker, it's $4,400.
Yet for a two-income couple, it's not $8,800, as simple fairness
would suggest, but $7,350. That means married workers who don't
itemize deductions on their tax forms - mostly low- and
middle-income couples - must pay taxes on an additional $1,450 in
income simply because they're married.

Another reason married couples pay more can be found in the way
tax brackets work. Take a married couple with a combined income of
$66,000, each earning a respectable but below average salary of
$33,000 (or $15.87 an hour). The tax rate for single workers
increases from 15 percent to 28 percent once their incomes exceed
$26,250. After deductions, our hypothetical couple would have
$25,800 in taxable income. Hence, you might expect them to escape
the 28 percent bracket, right?

Wrong. Two single people with the exact same incomes would have
no problem, since each files separately, and each makes less than
the amount taxed at 28 percent. They wouldn't start to feel the
bracket bite until their incomes passed the $52,500 mark. But for
the married couple, the 28 percent rate kicks in at $43,850. For
them, an additional $8,550 is taxed at the higher rate, for no
other reason than the fact that they're married.

Couples can figure out how much this penalty costs them by
visiting The Heritage Foundation's Marriage
Tax Relief Calculator, which debuts Sept. 5 at www.heritage.org. Using the
primary household income, the secondary income, the total amount of
deductions, and the number of dependents, the calculator tells you
how much more money you'd be able to keep at tax time without the
marriage penalty. Our hypothetical couple above, for example, would
get to keep an additional $1,414 in income - a 15 percent reduction
in their taxes.

The marriage penalty imposes yet another cost on low-income
couples: It prevents many from using the Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC). Nearly 1 million low-income working couples forfeit the
EITC every year simply because they're married. Two unmarried
parents with one child each can use the credit as long as their
individual incomes don't exceed $27,413 (total household income:
$54,826). But if the same couple (with the same income) gets
married, they can kiss the credit goodbye - because their
household income has surpassed the $31,149 threshold for two
children.

Tax-cut advocates usually justify their position by pointing to
the size of the budget surpluses now pouring into Washington. But
the marriage penalty deserves to be killed on the grounds of simple
fairness. Getting married is taxing enough without government
getting in on the act.